Huacachina / Ica

While we were in Paracas a nation wide bus strike took hold of Peru, making it virtually impossible to travel anywhere. Buses that did travel were vandalized by rocks and taken over by protesters. Despite rising gas prices, nearly $5 US dollars per gallon in lima, the Peruvian government wouldn’t allow the buses to raise its prices thus sparking a protest that lasted nearly a week screwed a lot of travelers, particularly ones try to catch flights home from lima. Luckily we weren’t to heavily effected and were able to catch a tourist van a couple hours further south to Huacachina without any interference.
The bus ride was once again through vast desert with smatterings of citrus agriculture, grape vines, and sand dunes. Just outside of the provincial capital of Ica, we arrived in the amazing location of Huacachina, a desert oasis village built around a small lake surrounded by massive sand dunes on all sides. It was super touristic, but gorgeous, with the major attractions being the hotel swimming pools, wandering around the oasis lake, sandboarding, and dune buggie rides. We attempted sandboarding which was pretty challenging based on the rudimentary homemade equipment available and bitching heat as you might imagine, but well worth a good fall or two to make the locals laugh. We did some hiking up to the top of the dunes at sunset for spectacular views of the endless dunes rolling off into the distance.
We ventured into Ica one day as well and went on a pisco tasting tour to an amazing old vineyard. Pisco is a southern Peruvian specialty grape whiskey that is particularly delicious served as a pisco sour made with sugar, lime, and blended with egg white…the keylime pie of alcohol…highly recommended. We learned about the distilling process and saw the tubs where they stomp on the grapes and some of the rudimentary presses mad from basically huge logs. From there we went to the cemetery which was fantastic. It was a traditional Spanish cemetery which I had never seen before…it was an efficient use of space if nothing else and a bit of a dark commentary on overpopulation, but interesting to see another cultures attempt to reconcile death by stuffing into a maze of boxes. From the cemetery we went to the local museum where they had ancient mummies on display that had been preserved in the deserts for thousands of years, as well as some interesting examples of head shaping, an ancient Peruvian tradition where skulls were elongated into conical shapes for aesthetic purposed from birth.